Matilda Bone (7 page)

"And you, my girl, for daytime dreaming and not watching where you are going," he said.

"
Me
? But
you
were sitting on the street with your face to the sky, not watching to see whose way you were in."

The boy shrugged. "My master told me I was looking too pale and sent me out for some sun. My master is the apothecary there," he said, gesturing toward the large shop behind him, "and I am his apprentice, Walter At-Water, though some call me Walter Mudd for the muddy salves and plasters smeared on my tunic."

"It is a fitting name for you, for never have I seen a boy so dirty."

"Nor I a girl so small, with eyes as green as grass, cheeks like peaches, and hair as gold as an ouzel's belly."

Matilda stared at him. Her cheeks grew warm. "Appearance counts for nothing, as the body is but a vessel for the soul, which should be meek and humble...."

"Then might I say, 'Never have I seen a girl with such comely humility'? Or perhaps 'I am overawed by your undistinguished, humble-spirited, humble-minded, humble-hearted, humble-looking humility, which humbly shines...'?"

As Matilda opened her mouth to reply, he stood up, bowed to her, and said, "We shall meet again. The glow from your triumphant humility will lead me to wherever you are. Also your green eyes."

The boy called Walter Mudd then winked at her and strode off whistling toward the shop.

Matilda frowned at his back. "
Stultissimus!
" she whispered. "He is as irritating as a pebble in the boot." She pulled a strand of hair across her shoulder and looked at it closely. Like an ouzel's belly, he had said. What, she thought, might an ouzel be?
Piscis aut avis? Lepus aut leo?
Fish or bird? Rabbit or lion? Whichever, it had a belly as gold as her hair, and she almost smiled as she continued on to Ralph Thwirp the tanner, the Devil take him.

Soon it was the Day of Ashes, the first day of Lent. Matilda awoke before dawn, disturbed by the sound of the church bells, which clunked rather than rang, it being that cold. Sticking a bare foot outside the quilt, she gasped at the chill and pulled her toes in again, snuggling down in the Matilda-shaped warm space in the hard straw mattress.

Finally she jumped up, naked as a needle, pulled on her shift and kirtle, and danced across the icy floor into the front room. "You look cold as a frog," called Peg from her bed.

An
eel, a flea, and now a frog,
thought Matilda. Did Peg even know she was a human being, made in God's image? Matilda stirred the ashes remaining in the iron brazier, blew on the embers, added kindling, and said a prayer to Saint Florian that the fire would start easily this time. It did; she was growing better at fires.

The church bells tolled for Mass. "Are you not going to Mass on this holy day?" Matilda asked Peg, who had not yet stuck foot out from under cover.

Peg shook her head. "Heaven is but a promise, while a warm bed is right now. I shall pray from here." Matilda thought it must be much easier not to be holy and obedient on a morning as cold as this.

She wrapped herself in her cloak—still damp from yesterday, for nothing dried in this cold—and hurried to the church. An icy rain was falling, and the sharp wind tugged at her cloak as if trying to pull it from her. Father Leufredus said the wind was the whistling of the Devil. Matilda shuddered, only partly from cold. She could hear the demon coming around corners and hiding in small spaces, and she crossed herself as she hurried to the safety of the church.

Although not crowded even on this holy morning, still the church was noisy with the sound of talking, scratching, and coughing. Feet shuffled on frozen rushes and stamped on the floor for warmth. But the gleam of the candles on silver and gold, the starchy smell of the linen and vestments, and the cloud of fragrant incense in the air promised what Heaven would be like. Mass made Matilda feel as if God were right there in church with her, even if she couldn't see Him. Most people looked about or gossiped or slept through Mass, but Matilda listened carefully, for sometimes amid the mumbling of the priest she could catch a word or two of Latin.

Matilda especially loved the Day of Ashes, for the priest dipped his thumb in holy ashes and marked the foreheads of the churchgoers: "
Pulvis es,
" you are dust. Matilda knew the ashes were supposed to be a reminder of mortality, but to her the smudge felt like a mark of holiness, as if those who saw her would know that although but an attendant to a bonesetter, she was marked for God and Heaven. On her way back to Peg's she felt her forehead again and again to make sure the ashes were still there.

On the Saturday after, when Gregory Merchantson paid Peg with a fish pie only two days old for setting his broken arm, Peg invited Margery and Nathaniel Cross, the apothecary, to dine.

First she set aside a mighty slice of the pie for Nathaniel to take back to his wife, Sarah, who could not easily leave their shop. Then she set the other slices on the scrubbed table for herself and Margery on one side, and Matilda and Nathaniel on the other.

It was Matilda's first opportunity to meet Nathaniel Cross. She was curious to see the man whom Peg spoke of as the best soul God ever made. Was he saintly and wise? Or no more a great man than Tom was?

What he was was straight as a stick and small as an elf, with a bald, freckled head and eyes that surprised her with their blueness. Blue as the Virgin's veil, they were, blue as the summer sky.

Chewing on a slice of hard bread, for thank God his teeth were still good, Nathaniel talked softly to them of his troubles. He had long been shortsighted, he said, but now his eyesight had weakened so that he could no longer see clearly what was right before his face. "The guild master has heard about my failing sight," Nathaniel said. "He knows of my slowness and mistakes."

He stopped. Peg stood and patted his shoulder, and he continued, "I told him it were true and he ordered me, with affection and pity but ordered me nonetheless, to cease practicing by summer. 'An apothecary,' he said, 'who can't be trusted to tell angelica from almond oil is no apothecary at all.'" As he said this, Nathaniel's eyes filled with hopeless tears.

Matilda was moved at the sight of those blue eyes overflowing with sorrow. "Father Leufredus says God uses illness and disease to punish the wicked. Perhaps if you were to repent?" she asked softly.

Margery stood up so quickly the bench fell over. "You ungracious, thoughtless, ill-mannered girl! You think Nathaniel's eye troubles stem from
wickedness?
Why, Nathaniel is ... is ... is ..."

Matilda stood also. She had suffered enough from this goose girl, but before she could respond, Nathaniel reached over and touched Margery's arm. "She was speaking to me, Margery. Let me answer her." Margery hauled the bench upright and sat back down with a thud, and Nathaniel turned toward Matilda, motioning her to sit as well. Matilda did so, grateful that Nathaniel had saved her from the temptation to speak her mind to Margery.

"It would be easier if I
were
wicked," Nathaniel said, "for repentance is well within my abilities. But unhappily I am no thief, no murderer, no traitor or seducer of women. I do not commune with devils or magicians. I am just an old man, young Matilda, and no better and no worse than any other man, not perfect but not wicked. I am an apothecary. I know and love herbs and healing. I can do nothing else, and I do not wish to." He snuffled, wiping his eyes on his sleeve.

Matilda could think of nothing to say to that. Glowering at Margery, for her anger was merely stifled and not forgotten, she took another bite of her pie.

"Would a wee bout of draughts comfort you, Nathaniel?" Peg asked, drawing her red eyebrows together in consternation.

Nathaniel shook his head. "No, thank ye, Peg. Not at the moment. I can think about little but my bad eyes. I saw Leech the bloodletter, but the bites of his leeches festered." Matilda was not at all surprised. "Walter had to anoint them with powdered larch bark and egg white. And my eyes are no better. Peter Threadneedle told me how the worm doctor had destroyed the worm that was paining his tooth. I thought perhaps he could help me, too." Nathaniel shook his head. "He could do nothing, and indeed, two days later, Peter himself betook his throbbing tooth to Barber Slodge to have it pulled. So desperate am I that I too stopped to see the barbers."

Boggle and Slodge were Blood and Bone Alley's barber-surgeons, who would cut your hair, your whiskers, or your leg off if you had the coin, for the alley was too poor a place to attract the kind of surgeon who does not also cut hair. Matilda knew their shop by the buckets of blood and bloody rags outside but had never been within.

"The barbers?" she asked. "Were you not afeared? Did you have to watch them cut off someone's leg?"

Nathaniel smiled and answered, "No, no. Indeed, much of their business is but tending dog bites, pulling teeth, and trimming beards."

"Were they any help with your eyes?" asked Peg.

"Boggle said obviously I want vomiting. Never, said Slodge, just a good cleanout of my bowels. 'Foul fiend!' Boggle shouted. 'Would you kill the man?' When they began talking about boiling oil, blistering, and excisions, I left the shop in a hurry."

Margery, Peg, and Nathaniel all laughed. The noise finally slowed to a wheeze and a sneeze, and Peg said, "Poor Nathaniel, is there no help for you? My mother used to say there was nothing like cabbage and honey to improve eyesight, though do you eat it or spread it on, I do not know. Or onion juice in the eye, or the blood of a tortoise, or seed of wild cucumber crushed in water, or—"

"Superstitions," said Doctor Margery. "Useless superstitions. Medicine teaches us that the eyes send unseen visual rays out to an object. If these rays are disturbed—by wine, women, baths, leeks or onions, by garlic, mustard seed, fire, light or smoke, dust, pepper, or beans—the sight fails."

The goose girl's opinions? Surely Nathaniel would laugh at her, but to Matilda's surprise he asked, "This then is what ails me?"

Margery shrugged. "It could also be a test from God, some foreign substance in the eye, or a cancer in the brain. Most likely it is because you are old, Nathaniel, and your eyes are wearing out like the soles of your shoes."

Master Nathaniel sat silent.

Matilda imagined his eyes fading from summer-sky blue to gray and misting over with blindness. She felt sadness, and the feeling frightened her. It was the sign of an earthly attachment. Father Leufredus would surely disapprove. Still, there it was, sadness, and another feeling she did not recognize. The nameless feeling tightened her chest, tickled her throat, and made her long to touch Nathaniel gently, the way Peg did. She thought of all the words that might describe this new feeling—compassion, pity, sympathy, mercy—but decided it was best said in Latin:
misericordia,
distress of the heart.

Lightning split the sky, followed by a great clap of thunder and a torrent of soft raindrops. There was a sweet smell in the air. Spring was but a promise, but a promise was better than winter.

Matilda was alone, Peg off seeing to Grizzl, when a man came seeking Peg, his right hand cradled in his left, pain in his eyes. Stephen Bybridge, for that is what he was called, living as he did near the bridge to the eastern part of town, said, "My hand aches some'ut fierce and prickles run up and down my arm, like bugs was dancin' on it, but I can see no bugs. Might Mistress Peg know what is wrong?"

"Mistress Peg is from home," Matilda said. She was about to bid him come another day when she thought,
I have learned well from Father Leufredus. Surely with his knowledge I can be useful.

To Stephen Bybridge she, eager yet a bit apprehensive, said again, "Mistress Peg is from home, but
I
will do what I can."

She prayed silently to saints known to listen favorably to petitions from the faithful. She recalled the Latin words for hand
(manus)
, arm
(brachium)
, pain
(dolor)
, even bugs
(formicae
—well, truly that was ants, but was the closest Matilda could come at the moment). She tried to remember what Thomas Aquinas and Saint Augustine might have said about hands and arms, but recalled only texts about resting in the hands of God. Comforting, but no help for Stephen Bybridge.

She thought of the saints in Heaven who suffered withered arms, useless arms, missing arms. Were they cured? How? Was any saint ever cured of an aching hand? She could not think of one. She could think of no saint with bugs or prickles on his arm, although Saint Mark was said to be effective against fly bites. Disheartened, she admitted that what she had learned from Father Leufredus was no help here. She gave up trying her learning and her Latin. She would try what she had learned so far from Peg.

Carefully she examined Stephen's hand, his arm, his elbow. She felt his forehead. Very gently, she moved his hand around. Then she looked at him, sat back, looked at the ceiling, and looked at him again.

"I do not know what to do now," she admitted. "I do not know. Best you wait for Mistress Peg."

Soon enough Mistress Peg arrived. "I tried to help him, Mistress Peg," said Matilda. "I tried everything I know but could not." She shook her head sadly.

"Knowing is not enough. You must also listen and look," said Peg, hanging her cloak on its hook. "What did you ask him?" Matilda was silent. "Well, look at him. What do you see?"

"I see an oldish man in a dusty tunic and worn boots of hard leather, with brown hair, a hopeful face, and a hand that pains him."

"Let me see what
I
can see," Peg said. She examined the man's arm. "Has this arm ever been broken?" she asked him.

"No," he said.

"The wrist? Any of the fingers? The thumb?" He shook his head.

"Have you suffered a severe blow to the elbow?"

"No," he said again.

"I am puzzled as to just what is wrong and why."

Matilda felt less stupid; Peg did not know what to do either. But where did that leave poor Stephen Bybridge?